


leaves from the vine

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “We’re all dead.”“Every last one of us,” Ira says. “Whatever war we were made for is done. We weren’t the winners of it.”





	leaves from the vine

Mark dreams of a waiting room. Could be any waiting room, anywhere – it’s generic enough, painted in dingy blues and soft yellows. It reminds him of when they were four, getting their first blood tests.

And maybe because he’s thinking of his brothers: there is one in one of the chairs, flipping absentmindedly through a women’s fashion magazine. Mark thinks  _Rick – James – Parsons –_ and then notices the lip gloss and the immaculately-groomed eyebrows and stops thinking any of those names.

“You’re Ira,” he says. “Funny that I’d dream about you.”

Ira looks up from his magazine, lets out a small  _ah_. “And you’re him,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for you, you know.”

“Who’s he.”

“The last one.”

_The last one_. There are some things that hurt you every time you remember them, even if you think you’ve grown accustomed. Gracie talking about her father. The smell of gunpowder. Glitching.

“I’m sorry,” Mark says, wandering over awkwardly and taking the seat next to Ira. Across from them is a faded poster for nothing in particular. “If you’d just held out – there’s a cure now. I just got the last dose.”

“ _I’m_  sorry,” Ira says, clapping the magazine closed and putting it on the table. He pivots towards Mark – his hands move towards Mark’s shoulders – they fold into each other again, drop into Ira’s lap. “There really is no good way to say this, is there. You’re dead.”

Mark laughs. “No I’m not. I’m not even glitching anymore.”

Ira frowns, petulant and pink. “I’m afraid I’m telling the truth,” he says. “If you don’t believe me you can walk through that door, over there.” He gestures to it, a flick of fingers. “They’re all on the other side, you know. They’re very – well –  _loud_.”

Mark laughs again. He leans back in his chair. “No,” he says. “No, I’m not dead.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Virginia Coady to spike a vaccine.”

“She’s my ma,” Mark says. “ _Our_ —”

_The truth? I drew straws._

“She isn’t my mother,” Ira says, before Mark can think of a way to salvage that sentence.

“Susan Duncan, then.”

“ _No—_ ” Ira starts, sounding less angry than peeved, and then he stops. Clears his throat. “Anyways. It doesn’t matter. I thought there was a chance that I wasn’t the last one, and it seemed prudent for  _one_  of us to wait for you.” He tugs the sleeves of his coat to perfect, matching lengths. “And I am the only one who thought I might be the last. The others – they leapt right through that door, like puppies. Only considering who might be waiting for them on the other side.”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “Can’t imagine Rudy waiting.”

“Rudy,” Ira says, slowly. “Was he the one who licked everything.”

Mark smiles, fond despite himself. “That’s him, alright.”

Ira shudders, delicately, like a Victorian maiden in some stage production. Mark laughs and Ira’s head whips up, offended.

“Sorry,” Mark says. “Can’t get past the…” he gestures to his lips. Ira reaches up fingers and touches his own, unconsciously, and then frowns.

“The,” he says.

“You’re wearing  _makeup_. Like a girl.”

“There is nothing inherently feminine about makeup,” Ira says loftily. “And I think you’re throwing stones in a glass house. Your  _hair_.”

“What  _about_  my hair.”

Ira opens his mouth, seems to sense a losing battle, closes it. “Nothing,” he says. “Please tell me our other brothers did not make such…bold grooming choices.”

Mark thinks about Rudy’s Mohawk. “No,” he says. “Buzzcuts all the way down.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Ira sighs, looking back out over the waiting room. He swallows. Does something infinitesimal that might be a fidget. “How is Sarah Manning.”

“Don’t know,” Mark says. “Only saw Helena, recently.”

“Still pregnant?”

“Not for long.”

More small twitches. “And Rachel?”

Mark turns his head to stare at Ira all the way. “I don’t know who that is.”

Ira blinks at him. “Rachel Duncan. Susan’s daughter. Believe me, you’d be quite aware if you knew of her. She’s…” he trails off, either because Rachel is indescribable or because of the look on Mark’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know that name,” Mark says. “Didn’t even know Susan had a daughter, I—” he stops. He rests his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “I’m dead,” he tells the floor.

“Unfortunately yes,” Ira says. “We all are. As I said, you’re the last.”

“Well that’s not  _fair_ , is it!” Mark says, standing up so emphatically that the chair rocks against the wall and Ira spooks like a colt. Mark paces back and forth across the waiting room. “I had a life, I had plans, I had a  _wife_  and now what’s she gonna do? Out there in the world all alone, everyone’s already left her and now I…” He slows, drops back into his chair. “We’re all dead.”

“Every last one of us,” Ira says. “Whatever war we were made for is done. We weren’t the winners of it.”

“No,” Mark tells the floor.

Ira’s hand lands tentatively on his shoulder, gives two brisk pats and then withdraws. When Mark doesn’t respond Ira braves a second attempt.

“Oh, come on,” Mark says. “We don’t do  _that_.”

“Well,” Ira says. “What  _we_.”

Mark looks up again. He sits up straight. His brother looks back at him like a nervous animal that can’t tell he and Mark are the same species.

“You’re scared,” Mark says, “to meet ‘em.”

“I’m not,” Ira says. He has the same tells as any of them. All the way down to the bones.

“You are,” Mark says. “Makes sense. They’re awful.” He laughs a little bit. “But they’re family, so.”

“I thought I might end up somewhere else,” Ira says. He looks away towards the door Mark came in through. “With Susan, perhaps. Rachel, whenever she inevitably arrives. And yet it turns out I can’t escape my heritage after all. Funny, isn’t it? After a lifetime of pretending I could ever be something else. Here I am. With all of you.”

“Maybe there are more doors,” Mark says. “Through that door.” Maybe there is somewhere he can wait for Gracie, however long that might be.

(He’ll do it. The waiting. However long it takes.)

Maybe the Proletheans have their own terrible heaven, and Mark can find it and punch Henrik Johanssen real good in the face. Maybe his birth ma is out there. Anything. He wants to believe in it, suddenly – understands what Ira means. That they could be more than this.

“I’d like to think so,” Ira says. He brushes a piece of absolutely nothing off the knees of his trousers. “But there really is no way to know, is there.”

“There’s one way.”

Ira blinks, looks up at Mark – Mark, who has stood from his chair. Mark, who is holding out his hand to both a brother and a stranger at once. “Come on,” he says. “Castors don’t run from a fight. We run to it, yelling like idiots.”

“I don’t  _yell_ ,” Ira says stuffily, but he takes Mark’s hand with delicate fingertips and stands. Adjusts his coat. Adjusts the shoulders of Mark’s shirt until Mark frowns and Ira stops.

“Shall we?” Ira says, voice nervous and high.

“Word of advice,” Mark says. “Don’t say  _shall_.” And he crosses the room, and he opens the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Little soldier boy  
> Come marching home  
> Brave soldier boy  
> Come marching home  
> \--"Leaves from the Vine," ATLA
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
